Chinese adaptation of award-winning French play tours nation

The Chinese stage adaptation of Le Pere (The Father), the award-winning work of one of France's most popular young playwrights, Florian Zeller, was staged in Beijing from Nov 20 to 23.

Since its premiere in July 2024, the play, directed by David Weiguo Jiang and produced by Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre, has toured nationwide, visiting cities, including Beijing, Nanjing in Jiangsu province, Xiamen in Fujian province and Hangzhou in Zhejiang province.

Le Pere won the 2014 Moliere Award for Best Play. Its film adaptation, written and directed by Zeller himself, gained six Oscar nominations in 2021 and won in Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Actor categories.

The role centers on Anne, a middle-aged woman whose father, Anthony, suffers from Alzheimer's disease. As reality gradually dissolves in his mind, tensions rise between father and daughter. Shouldering both filial love and family duty, Anne is under tremendous pressure as she must decide whether to take care of her father at home or send him to a hospital.

In the Chinese stage adaptation, veteran actress Tian Shui plays the role of the daughter and Taiwan-based actor King Shih-chieh plays Anthony, an elderly man struggling to accept that he is losing his memory and going through cognitive decline.